The revolution was never over. It had just been dormant for a brief period, during the time when women thought they could finally get “comfortable.” As though that’s ever an option for someone with the capacity to create and carry human life within themselves. There’s nothing comfortable about that responsibility potentially being thrust upon (or perhaps the word is “into”) a girl just because she takes an often useless gamble on trying to get an orgasm. And now, the risk of that likely-not-to-be-had orgasm was made even more perilous because some old white men (and even some of their misogynistic female stooges) had decided that Roe vs. Wade was “egregiously wrong from the start.”

The potential for its overturning came at a time when the Senate was also due to vote on the Women’s Health Protection Act, a bill designed to codify Roe vs. Wade. A bill that would restrict governments at the state level from impinging on a health care provider’s offering of key abortion services (including, of course, abortion itself). But Eva and the women in her area she had rallied together to strike on Mother’s Day were well-aware that such a bill would not pass, and that the only way to protect Roe vs. Wade was to perform a battle cry to the death for it. Those in the collective who were of the boomer generation remained particularly astonished that it still came down to this. Screaming and shouting for rights that should be inherent. Instead, women of America were saddled with a gaslighting government. A Supreme Court manipulated by a raving conservative lunatic who said things like, “Until the latter part of the twentieth century, there was no support in American law for a constitutional right to obtain an abortion.” What the fuck did he think the opening to the Bill of Rights was talking about, huh? Because restricting a woman’s free will certainly doesn’t fall under her ability to engage in “the pursuit of happiness,” if we’re going by the Declaration of Independence (but then, if we were, linguists with an agenda would point out that only “men” are highlighted as having that “unalienable right”). Eva was trying to pursue hers by getting rid of the fetus inside of her the day after, of all days, Mother’s Day. 

But before that, on Mother’s Day, she had decided to partake of the national strikes that were being organized by a certain activist named Allison. One supposed all women were activists when they had to be… even when it might have been poorly executed on an aesthetic front with those “pussy hats” of 2017. Some might even say that women were getting it wrong again by still highlighting a stereotype about themselves that should have eradiated after The Feminine Mystique came out. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have used the following verbiage describing how they plan to protest: “abstaining from work, shopping, entertaining; and on the home front, running a household that would fall apart without your care.” This gives rise to the question: shouldn’t women have already protested against this trope in and of itself? Didn’t they already? With the bra-burning and the normalization of divorce and/or being single past “a certain age”? Yet here they are, still caught in the same rut of rebelling against the very thing they keep returning to: “comfortable concentration camps” a.k.a how Friedan referred to being a wife and homemaker. The only difference now is that women try to do both: be the goddess of the hearth and have a career. Some fucking luxury. Even Hestia wouldn’t buy into it. 

Along with the “luxury,” apparently, of having been so briefly given the gift of constitutionally-sanctioned abortion rights. But then a certain “Justice” randomly decided to declare, “The inescapable conclusion is that a right to abortion is not deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and traditions.” Maybe that’s true—if only because nothing in the Nation’s history and traditions has ever favored women or their rights to make decisions about their own bodies. Which would, yes, constitute a right to “liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” But men in the U.S. (or anywhere) have never wanted women to be happy. That would infer they had autonomy in the same way as men. And loss of power is the patriarchy’s ultimate fear. Eva knew that as well as the women surrounding her at the protest that was fast drawing in crowds of women outside the Catholic church on Bush Street (yes, it was a rather fitting street name for the occasion). 

As was to be expected, many of the women who decided to show up were French or French American. Église Notre Dame des Victoires had, after all, been founded specifically to accommodate French Catholic immigrants in San Francisco during the Gold Rush. And now, here they all were. The descendants that had been spawned from “adventurous spirits” (read: ultimately lazy ilk who wanted to get rich quickly). Minus the requisite dick that had been associated with gold mining culture. No, this time around, it was uteruses only, and they were “mining” for something different. Yet still something so hopelessly intertwined with capitalism: child-bearing. Which became enmeshed with the economy somewhere along the line, namely when Adam Smith stuck his nose in—and honestly, who the fuck asked him, a Scotsman, to get involved with U.S. economics? One would expect this behavior of a “mainland Brit” but not a Scot. In any event, children had become nothing more than little dollar signs to government officials and corporations alike. Not only because of all the shit that could be sold under the guise of a “need” in raising them, but because these were future soldiers of capitalism. Ergo, in the minds of these money-hungry psychos: if you diminish the birth rate in any way, you fuck with the economy. That was, Eva believed, the real reason government wanted to criminalize abortion again.

Allison had her own ideas about the sick fucks running the country who got their jollies from a patently rigged system that thrived on sexism. That’s why they insisted, as part of the general strike, “What always works, every time, is hitting them in the bank.” But no, that’s not true. And it certainly hasn’t been with regard to the economic sanctions on Putin/Russia. Those in power are rich enough to withstand what amounts to a drop in the bucket of truly affecting them. They and their progeny could endure a lifetime of peon protests “hitting them where it hurts” and not really feel the effects as an average person would. For the average person always ends up surrendering to capitalism, so rooted as it is in every facet of existence. 

Commencing the strike on Mother’s Day was meant to be an ironic blow to the conservatives who themselves seemed to want to deliver their own coup de grâce to women throughout the nation. A message that reiterated their sole worth to mankind was popping one out. Do your “job,” woman. Know your place: in the home, as a mother. That was the idea. And that women shouldn’t be getting any of their own ideas about “choice.” There wasn’t one. Birth or be punished. Pay for the sin of fucking that no man ever had to endure a consequence for if he didn’t want to. 

The chant outside the church grew louder as the congregation that had trickled in tried its best to focus on the clergyman’s sermon. It went as follows: Ne jamais forcer une femme à être mère. Why create more unwanted children in this world? Ones who would be resented and grow up to internalize that resentment? Letting it stew inside of themselves and cause early-onset mental health issues stemmed from feelings of inadequacy and a lack of self-worth. Didn’t the anti-abortionistis see? It was hard enough to be a mother of one’s own volition without then having it forced upon you by the government.